Sunvaar
by Y-ko
Summary: If she'd been anyone else, she could have accepted this as the end of her adventuring career, retired and gone to live a quiet life on a farm somewhere. But she wasn't anyone else. She was the Dragonborn, and crippled or not, she was going to have to face Alduin.


Nilanwe's toes pressed against the first of the stone steps leading up to the tomb. The locals called it "Shroud Hearth Barrow," and there was nothing special about it, but her heart hammered like she was facing down Alduin's maw. The wind that blew from the south, carrying with it the moisture and scent of vegetation from the lake, emitted a keening whine as it passed through the corridors and crevices of the barrow. Was it an omen? Or had it always sounded so unearthly, and she was only now noticing it?

"Are you coming?" She chewed the inside of her lip as Etienne's voice reached her. "They're only stairs, you know. We just came down seven thousand of them."

She didn't need this. She could do this without him coaching her through every step like she was a helpless babe. "Of course," she replied, and tried to lift her foot, but it seemed rooted to the ground. She struggled to come up with an excuse. "Only… You'll be sure to watch out for anything valuable, won't you?"

"I always have."

"And the traps. And the—the draugr waiting in the hollows in the walls. Since I can't… spot them, anymore." Her steady voice cracked on the last few words. She heard a soft sigh that he probably hadn't intended for her to hear and then the padding of his boots against stone as he came back down to her. He placed his hand on her shoulder, and she flinched; she knew he was there, and the scars from her burns didn't hurt much anymore, but they were still sensitive enough that every touch felt wrong.

"We don't have to go through with this if you're not ready," he said. His soft Daggerfall accent, usually calming, today just felt condescending, and it irked her.

"Of course I'm ready. I'm just being cautious…"

"It's all right if you're afraid."

"I'm not afraid."

"You're shaking." She jerked her shoulder away from under his hand and folded her arms tightly across her chest. Regardless of how she _felt_ about it, this was something she needed to do—to prove that she wasn't a lost cause, and wouldn't have to lie down and let Alduin swallow up the world.

They stood silently for a while before he spoke again. "You'll be fine. It's just a dusty crypt filled with some decrepit old bonewalkers. Nothing we haven't faced before."

Damn him! She forced back the frustrated tears brimming in her eyes. It was different this time, and he knew it. Everything was wrong. The stiff leather of her new armor chafed against her skin with each movement she made, but without the familiar weight of her bow and quiver on her back, she still felt stark naked. And it wouldn't be the both of them fighting, but just him. He'd be protecting her like a child or an _invalid_. He couldn't just pretend that nothing had changed!

She gritted her teeth and tried to get ahold of herself, inhaling deeply—as deeply as she could, anyway. The mask of Krosis covering her disfigured face always made the air she breathed feel stale as a tomb. Kyne, Y'ffre, Talos, _anyone_, please; she already had one foot in the grave, just let her hold off on the other for a little longer.

With her knees still shaking, she finally took the first step up to the barrow.

* * *

It had been three long and painful months of recovery and training since that day on the Throat of the World—the day when the Elder Scroll had taken her sight from her, and Alduin's flames had taken the rest. It had only been Paarthurnax's quick intervention and Arngeir's skill in restoration magic that had kept her from becoming another charred, unidentifiable corpse on the ground, and not a day went by that she didn't wish they'd just let her die up there instead. It had started as a joke—ha, ha, it could be worse, right? At least she wasn't dead—but as the weeks went by and it became clear she'd never return to normal, the humiliation and pain had her looking over the options again. At least if she'd died there, she would have gone out with some dignity. Whatever she was doing now, it wasn't living, just an imitation.

_It wasn't hopeless._ That was what she kept telling herself. She'd been left with a whisper of life, and, fittingly, what could only be described as a ghost of her sight. She couldn't see, but she could still _sense_ objects and creatures nearby her. She could tell if there was an obstacle in her way, and even navigate around it, provided she didn't think too much about it. She could feel when someone was nearby her, and when they moved. But despite the training she'd been forcing herself through to hone this blindsense into something useful, it remained so vague and imprecise as to be almost worthless. She still couldn't pick out a closed door along a wall, let alone aim with a bow. Her marksmanship, her greatest pride, had been taken from her, and it left her feeling helpless.

If she'd been anyone else, she could have accepted this as the end of her adventuring career, retired and gone to live a quiet life on a farm somewhere. She had enough gold saved up to eke out a tight, but manageable existence for the next few decades at least, and continuing to delve into dungeons while blind and defenseless was stupid beyond belief. But she wasn't anyone else. She was the Dragonborn, and crippled or not, she was going to have to face Alduin. If she couldn't learn how to manage a simple barrow, the world was doomed.

And if this trip was any indication, the world ought to just accept its fate already. Just a few minutes into the dungeon, she managed to trip onto a pressure plate and nearly impale her companion on a spear trap. It only got worse from there; she went on to slip in shallow pools of lantern oil, place her hand atop a sleeping draugr as she crept along a wall, and nearly pull herself and Etienne both to their deaths when she misjudged where the edge of a bridge was and he had to lunge back and catch her. She took a few timid swings at draugr with her dagger, but couldn't score more than glancing hits—even sighted, she'd never been more than a middling swordfighter. Eventually she gave up and resigned herself to hiding back in the shadows while Etienne took on the undead with his shortsword and buckler. Like her, Etienne was more of a rogue than a fighter, and without her bow to thin the draugr hordes, he tired quickly. All she could do was continue handing him potions to keep him on his feet and pray for this to end.

Nilanwe was clutching Etienne's arm as they shuffled down a long corridor, fear of stumbling again having finally overcome her pride, when she caught a whisper of a familiar rhythmic chant. She shuddered, and Etienne stopped. "Is this it?" he asked her. She nodded, and felt his body sag a bit under her fingers. Though he tried to hide it, she knew he was tired and worn to the point of breaking. The room in a barrow that held a word wall was invariably also the room where the leader of the draugr slept, the one that was the strongest among them. Even when she and Etienne worked together, those fights were always perilous, and the way they were now… She didn't know if they would survive.

She found herself searching for an excuse to turn back. Despite the fact that she'd been the one to insist on this trip, she didn't want to face the end any more than Etienne did. "We could wait," she suggested. "We could rest and return tomorrow."

He sighed. "If we do, there'll only be more draugr awake and waiting for us then. Best to get this over with." He was right, of course. Either they saw this through now, or they'd be admitting defeat.

"If there's any way I can aid you…" she tried, her tone becoming somewhat desperate.

"Do you have any more of those potions? With the sabre cat eyes and the skeever hide…?" She shook her head. He'd exhausted her entire supply. She'd have to find a way to make more without being able to see what she was doing. "All right. Just wait by the door, then. If whatever's on the other side proves to be too strong, we can run back through and barricade it."

That drew a tiny smile from her, the first one in weeks, not that Etienne could see it. It was what she liked about fighting alongside someone who was both Breton and a thief by trade. There was none of that Nord nonsense about honor in battle, or of having to prove oneself by fighting to the death. Better to run, hide, and live to fight another day.

There was a tortured creak as the rusted iron hinges of a door inched open. They both dropped into a crouch and crept through, Nilanwe placing her hand on the doorframe and letting it guide her to a spot against the wall on the other side. Ahead, she heard a sharp breath come from Etienne, and she knew that it was bad. "What is it?" she whispered. All she could make out was the trickle of flowing water.

"A lot of coffins. Maybe a dozen, at a glance." She swore. If there were draugr in each of those, they would be overwhelmed in seconds. There was a rasp of steel on leather as his sword was sheathed, being replaced by the creak of a bowstring. Her fingers itched jealously. "I'm going to try and draw them out one by one."

Her grip tightened around the hilt of her elven dagger as his footsteps proceeded. Shortly there was a telltale _crack_ of a stone sarcophagus popping open, the twang and zip of an arrow being released, and a muffled thump. She let out a breath. One down…

_Crack! Crack-crack-crack-crack._

The room erupted into chaos. Ancient iron clanged on steel; bone and rotting flesh shuffled against stone. Nilanwe curled tighter against the wall and listened intently, grateful for the sound of each parry, each thud of an old dry body against the ground, for they meant that they were both alive for that much longer. She was so deep in the sounds of battle that she didn't notice one of the draugr had broken free and shuffled her way, not until it was nearly upon her and she heard the guttural hiss of words in the dragon tongue. She kicked off from the wall and rolled away just as a heavy blade crashed into the ground where she'd been sitting. She struck out with her dagger, but the dead tendons and muscle might as well have been steel cables for the way her blade slid off them uselessly. She heard its sword whip through the air again and made the mistake of hesitating as she tried to guess where the hit was coming from, giving it just enough time to slam the blade into her left side. The edge of the sword was dulled and didn't cut through her leather armor, but pain blossomed in her ribs as she was knocked away. In a desperate move, she reached out and snatched at the draugr, managing to grab it around an arm, and drew it in closer to her, stabbing her blade into its flesh repeatedly. She hit higher and higher on its body until finally she reached its skull and sank the dagger into one of its eye sockets. It shrieked and recoiled before falling limp.

She was still catching her breath when a pained yell cut through the sounds of combat. She froze. "Etienne!" There was no response. What had happened? The hisses, grunts and clacks from the horde grew in intensity; they smelled blood, sensed the approach of death. He wasn't going to last much longer if she didn't go in and distract them. But for the second time that day, her legs were locked in place. She couldn't—she could barely fight one draugr let alone five, ten? How many were there? She could run, like they'd planned. There was no sense in them both dying. She could run and make it out of here alive…

_No!_ Her hands wrung around the hilt of her dagger. The grooves of its patterned grip dug through her gloves and into her skin. It didn't matter if she was frightened; she couldn't just leave him there. That wasn't how this worked. She gritted her teeth, clutched the dagger like a lifeline, and charged forward with a scream. _"Su!"_ New strength flowed into her body, and her dagger flew like a diving hawk, carving into the throng of undead bodies. She couldn't tell where one ended and another began—it was all just one swirling mass—but she didn't spare a thought towards it. That was the secret to fighting blind: her body knew where to go, even if she didn't. The _Thu'um_ gave her strikes the power to cleave through their hardened flesh, and one by one, they began to fall.

But it wasn't enough. When the wind left her, she was still surrounded by draugr, pressing in on all sides and throwing their swords and axes clumsily against her armor. With her hits sluggish once more, she couldn't force them back, and she began to feel that she was suffocating in a sea of putrid flesh. Panic welled inside her. She couldn't move, and there was still no word from Etienne. Was he bleeding out, or worse? She had to get to him—she had to escape.

She dropped into another crouch, leaving the draugr confused and flailing above her as they struggled to follow her movement. She fought back her shallow breathing, took in the deepest breath she could muster, and forced out another Shout. _"Fus—ro!"_ She'd barely spoken the first syllable when she heard Etienne's voice croak "Wait!" but she couldn't take it back now. The words burned as they left her throat and took all the air from her lungs with them, leaving her doubled over and gasping on the ground. The shockwave of force sent bodies flying like tumbleweeds, brittle limbs splintering against stone and splashing into deep pools of water. But there was also a softer thump and a moan of pain among them, and she realized in horror that she'd gotten Etienne caught up in her last attack. She tried to call out to him, but the strain from using the _Thu'um_ twice in such a short period left her coughing feebly.

A rough hand from above seized her by her cowl. She rolled over and kicked, sweeping its legs out from underneath it, and it fell directly on top of her. Its foul, rattling breath assaulted her as they found themselves face-to-face, and one of its hands tore at her mask, as though the draugr was offended by a mortal wearing the phylactery of one of its masters. She grabbed its wrists and rolled on top of it, trying to gain control of the grapple, but it pushed her aside easily and lunged again. She dove to the right to avoid it—only to realize she'd made a terrible mistake. Her stomach plummeted as her body came down on nothing but air and then fell into the water surrounding the platform with a splash. The draugr came with her, hands wrapped around her neck.

The water was so cold that she didn't even feel it at first, but then it hit her, a thousand frigid needles piercing her skin at once. Her body seized up, and she gasped, losing the last bit of air she'd brought with her. She kicked and flailed her legs, trying to get back to the surface, but the draugr dragged her down like an anchor. Its grip stayed tight around her neck no matter how she tore at it with her hands. Her chest burned for air, and she tried to hold her breath, but soon her body's reflexes overcame her and she inhaled a great lungful of icy, stagnant water. She coughed and went into convulsions, her limbs flailing uselessly in her last desperate attempt to get free, to _breathe_…

Something grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her up, finally wrenching her free of the draugr's death grip. Her head broke the surface of the water, and she grasped around with her other hand for the edge of the platform. She meant to pull herself up and back onto land, but her arm was limp and shaking and she barely had the strength to curl her fingers around the edge. Arms wrapped under her shoulders and pulled her up, slowly, until she was being dragged against stone and laid flat once again. She tore off her mask and cowl, heaved, and spat up the water she'd swallowed, drawing in the rank air of the tomb with ragged and thankful gasps.

There was a hand on her shoulder. She reached out to touch who it belonged to, and her fingers looped around a string of small pouches drawn across their chest. Etienne. Immediately she sat up and turned to him, and it was his turn to flinch as her short crop of stringy, curly hair fell away to reveal her burned face. Her hand fell back to her side. Of course. She tried not to remove her mask around others anymore, so it was easy to forget, but… Sight wasn't the only thing she'd lost up on the Throat of the World.

No time for self-pity. She fumbled about removing her gloves, finally pulling them off with her teeth when her numb and shaking fingers weren't up to the task, found his hand, which was shaking almost as badly as hers. "Wh-where…" Her voice, raspy and weak from the beating her throat had taken, gave out before she could finish. She furrowed her brow and tried again. "Where… are you injured? Show me." There was a pause, and then he guided her to his right side, where his other hand covered a gash in his side. Even with him holding it shut, she felt a steady stream of blood leaking from it and covering her fingers. However bad the original wound had been, he'd made it worse by having to strain himself to save her.

She had to stop the bleeding. She pulled open the drawstring on her bag of potions and poultices, dumping out ceramic jars and glass vials as well as the inch or so of water that was still trapped in the bag. Fortunately, each of the bottles and jars was sealed watertight. She felt around for the ones she needed: garlic, vampire dust and mudcrab chitin to mend the skin and ward against infection, wheat and blue-petaled mountain flowers to replace the blood and vitality he'd already lost. Which ones were those? She'd always labeled them by color before, and now in her panic she couldn't remember—was it in the square jar, or the tall one, or the one with little handles? As she fumbled with a vial, Etienne's hands brushed hers aside and took it from her.

"Don't worry. I can do it."

"Do you know—"

"Yes."

"It's red for—"

"Yes, I know." He sounded so tired, so resigned. She withdrew and wrapped her arms around her chest, trying to get her trembling body under control. A minute later, she heard him rooting around inside his pack, and he came back to drape a spare woolen blanket around her shoulders. Her face burned, and she shook from more than just the cold. She'd never felt so humiliated, so worthless. He was the one who'd taken a gods-damned sword to the gut, and he was still concerned with _her_. She didn't need to be coddled! She'd tracked elk across mountain passes in blizzards and buried poisoned arrows in the throats of the Thalmor's targets without batting an eye. She was an experienced and hardened hunter, agent, and when the need called for it, a killer. She was competent, resourceful, fearless. She could take care of herself.

So why didn't she feel that way anymore?

As Etienne gathered the potions back into the bag, she drew the blanket over her head and low across her face to hide her shame.

* * *

Ironically, the word on the wall at the end of the barrow was _Drem_—peace.

* * *

The ride back to Falkreath was long and awkward. Etienne seemed to have at last run out of reassuring platitudes; every subject that he broached felt forced. And despite her body's hardiness against disease, Nilanwe had managed to fall ill from something in the water in the crypt. She spent most of the two-day journey huddled inside her thick fur cloak, trying not to draw attention to her sniveling and coughing. She didn't want to waste another part of her dwindling potion supply on something as stupid as this.

She still didn't know what she'd done to deserve this. Wasn't it enough that she was sentenced to die fighting Alduin and his army? She'd accepted that role and thrown herself into it, perhaps a bit reluctantly at first, but she'd never complained—not when she was thrown into the dungeons on suspicion of conspiracy with Ulfric Stormcloak, not when she'd nearly lost an arm to frostbite after fighting Diinvenriik and Krosis at Shearpoint, not when she was kept up at night by visions of towns burning and the world blinking out like a snuffed candle. Yet someone had seen fit to make her job this much harder, her life this much more miserable. It was childish to say so, but it was plain _unfair_.

The sun was setting when they arrived at the small cottage she'd had constructed on the outskirts of Falkreath (though she could only tell the time now by changes in temperature). She never quite knew why she'd had it built in the first place, as due to living nomadically for most of her life, she found it stifling to stay indoors for any great length of time. She'd mostly been using it as a place to store the books she picked up on her travels—a fat lot of good _those_ would be to her now.

"I'm staying outside tonight," she declared. It was the most she'd spoken since leaving the barrow.

"Are you sure? It's… getting a bit cold for that."

Her frown deepened. What he meant was that she was vulnerable; he ought to just say it outright. "I'll be fine."

"I could stay out here with you if you'd—"

"_No_. Go inside and let me be." It came out harsher than she'd intended, but it was the truth: she needed to be alone. Three months, she thought to herself as she clumsily pitched her tent by feel; three months of the Greybeards and Etienne hanging over her, watching her every move, trying to help her dress and feed herself and navigate the halls of High Hrothgar while dancing around admitting _why_ they had to help her. Nobody wanted to speak aloud about her blindness, as though that would somehow make it more real, more permanent.

Worse still than the constant mothering and pity was the sense that she'd failed them. Again, none of them had said it out loud, but she knew each of them had thought it. They went through the motions of helping her to recover and training her to fight through her disability, but in the end, none of them believed that she would be able to fulfill her duty as Dragonborn like this. Least of all her.

She sat outside the tent for a while until she was certain no one would come to disturb her and then finally pulled down her fur hood and removed the bronze mask. The open evening air kissing her scarred face was something she hadn't felt in weeks, and it calmed her. She sat cross-legged on the ground, inhaling the scent of the pine forests and trying to clear her mind to meditate. But her thoughts kept returning to the Throat of the World, and Alduin's flames, and the sensation of drowning while dead hands clawed at her throat. Eventually, she had to give up. The night was indeed cold, and she wasn't in the shape to defy Skyrim's harsh winters tonight. She crawled back into her tent, wrapped herself in her bedroll, and fell asleep within minutes.

* * *

She stood on a flat, open valley ringed by jagged mountain peaks. A sharp wind howled through the air, bending the grasses at her feet flat and making her pull her cloak tighter around her shoulders. The sky was an inky black; all of the stars had gone out. The only light came from the huge crimson form of Masser, which loomed so close that she felt she could almost touch it. A tickling sensation played in the back of her mind, warning her that something about this was wrong. After several minutes of pondering, she realized what it was: she could see.

A brown rabbit darted past her feet, hopping in an erratic zigzag path as it sought cover and safety from the open plain. As she watched, a huge wolf appeared to chase after it. Its fur was long, ratty, and black as the sky, its eyes red and huge like the moon. It chased the rabbit down, sank its teeth into its scruff and whipped it back and forth, splattering the surrounding grass with blood. As it did, it caught sight of her. Slowly, it placed the bloodied corpse of the rabbit, neck broken, on the ground, and lunged at her, snarling and baring its dagger-like teeth. Nilanwe sidestepped its attack and kicked it in the side as it passed her, knocking it off-balance, then pulled out her dagger. She plunged it into the wolf's side and dragged it down through its soft underbelly. Blood and entrails poured from the wound, covering her leather gloves and steaming as they hit the cold ground. The wolf's body went limp.

It wasn't over. The wolf's stomach bulged and the skin around the wound grew taut, as though something inside was struggling to escape. The gash split wider until it ran the length of the wolf's entire midsection, and then the skin pulled back. From among the bones and organs emerged the skeletal head of a deer, which was worn over the head of a towering man. Besides the skull, he wore only a loincloth and a spear at his back.

Nilanwe's grip on the bloodied dagger tightened. She'd only seen this figure in books before, but there was no mistaking who it was. "Hircine." The deer skull turned towards her. The blood covering it made the empty sockets gleam like eyes in the moonlight. She kept her gaze level, knowing that showing weakness to a Prince was as good as a death sentence, but her heart hammered inside her chest. "What is it that you want from me?"

After staring for a while longer, he spoke, his voice low and threatening as the wolf's growl. "Hunter. This era's Great Game is at hand. I have selected you to join in the hunt for my prey."

"Your prey? Who is it that you want dead? Or what?"

The deer skull tilted slightly. "One of my children has transgressed against me and stolen an item of great value. In response, I am gifting him with this. He will be hunted down, and the skin torn from his body like a common deer."

"Why should I agree to do this? I have no interest in your prey or your hunt." It was bolder than she thought she'd ever speak to a Daedra, but the return of her sight had made her headstrong.

"You do not choose to join this hunt. You have been chosen. The Bloodmoon calls you."

"I could choose not to answer. What then?"

Silence. Another gust of wind blew across the valley, carrying with it the scent of blood. "The hunt cannot be denied. You will take part in it, if not as a hunter, then as prey. There are other hunters vying for my favor. If you disobey, they will turn their sights on you."

With that, the aspect of Hircine turned its back on her and strode off across the field, and the plane around her collapsed into nothingness.

* * *

Something was on top of her—suffocating her. Disoriented by her newly-returned blindness, Nilanwe thrashed around until her hand hit a toppled pole and she realized what it was: her badly-pitched tent had collapsed on her while she was sleeping. She grunted and wriggled her way out from under the layers of fur and leather until she was free and could feel the wind again, and then dissolved into a coughing fit that burned her chest and left her on her hands and knees. Her head felt heavy when she lifted it again, and her body shook with chills. Damn fever dreams.

But that wasn't all it was, she reflected as she fished around in her satchel and retrieved a cylindrical vial containing a solution of powdered hawk feathers and mudcrab chitin. She swallowed it with a grimace: she was still loathe to waste a potion on herself, but if her sickness got any worse, she'd only be a burden—_more _of a burden. As inclined as she was to blame the dream on her illness and fatigue, she wasn't a fool. The Princes never showed up in a dream by accident. This was a direct order: she was to find, kill, and skin the man who had transgressed against Hircine.

But how? Why had she even been selected for this? She'd never prayed to any Daedra, unless invoking their names in a few choice curses counted. She ground her teeth in frustration. She wasn't any kind of hunter, not anymore. Of course, in her adolescence, she'd made her living between assignments by tracking beasts and killing them for their pelts and meat. Her mother had taught her tracking techniques used by the rangers of Valenwood, and she had taken to them well. She'd been able to follow an elk through a forest even with a day and an inch of fresh snowfall between them. But those days were behind her forever now. Out of all the methods she'd learned, not one of them could be used without sight.

She sat on top of her collapsed tent and wrung her hands. There had to be a way. She'd read a lot about the Daedric Princes—the Thalmor had discouraged any mention of them, naturally, but they couldn't control which books found their way into her pack when she searched a mark's house. Each of the Princes acted differently towards their followers. There were some, like Mehrunes Dagon, that took delight in cruelty for cruelty's sake and sent mortals to be slaughtered like sheep. But Hircine was the patron of the hunt, and so he always gave his subjects a "fair" chance, insofar as the Daedra saw it. That meant there had to be a way for her to succeed at this, even if the odds were somewhere in the realm of a mudcrab managing to slay a sabre cat.

Hircine had referred to the target as "one of his children." That implied a disgraced hunter or therianthropes. Perhaps she could ask around Falkreath in the morning for rumors… But even if she got a name or location from that, she would still need Etienne to guide her to it. That wouldn't do. This task had been given to her, and it would be expected that she alone would complete it. There had to be another way.

She sat there for hours in contemplation, the cold bothering her less now that she had a distraction from it. The first few weak rays of sun were upon her brow and the songs of waking pine thrushes carried to her ears when she finally remembered that there _was_ a spell… In fact, it was one meant solely for determining where something was. She'd never had the head for magic, but like all agents of the Thalmor, she'd been taught basic cantrips to aid her survival in Skyrim's harsh wilderness—utility spells for lighting fires, healing small cuts and bruises, summoning orbs of light, and so on. This particular spell was a bit of mysticism meant for finding mundane objects near to the caster (hidden keys, a source of water, discarded weapons) or extremely powerful objects or targets far away. It would tell the caster which direction they needed to go to reach their target, though it was fickle and not always accurate in doing so. She hadn't thought about it in years, preferring to rely on her own senses rather than a spell that might guide her off a cliff if her attention strayed for one moment. But now, it might be her only way.

It took a few minutes of wracking her memory for the correct words, mumbling incantations and sloppily gesturing with her fingers, before the spell finally went off correctly. When it did, she felt a magical aura clinging to her mind like a haze, waiting for her to give it focus. "Shapechangers," she murmured. "I need to find shapechangers within Skyrim." Nothing happened. She needed to give it more information. She furrowed her brow and thought up images of a werewolf, werebear, and weretiger. At that, dozens of points of light lit up her mind's eye like stars, each representing a different therianthrope. She frowned. Did Skyrim really have _that_ many? Something more… Hircine's avatar had emerged from a wolf, specifically. Wolves were commonly associated with Hircine, but if she was grasping at straws, she might as well count it as a clue. She narrowed her focus to a werewolf, bipedal and muscular with a dripping mouth full of sharp teeth. A handful of points disappeared, but most still remained.

Maybe she was thinking about it the wrong way. Hircine had said that the target had stolen something valuable. If it was important enough to anger a Prince, it would surely be powerful—powerful enough, perhaps, for her to detect it even from a great distance. Artifacts of Hircine—what were they again? The spear… the Savior's Hide… the ring… There! All but one of the points vanished, and she felt an almost physical tug no her body pointing her in another direction—_northwest_.

She felt a surge of enthusiasm, but then it vanished. Was she really going to do this? Go out alone, blind, with only an unreliable spell to guide her on a journey that could take days or weeks, all to end up probably dying to a werewolf? Arkay's sake, if she wasn't even able to kill a draugr without help, how could she take on a werewolf? It was foolish, almost unimaginable… but then, so was facing a dragon. The thought stirred something inside her, the same adrenaline and pounding heart she'd felt every time she heard a dragon's roar in the sky. Not fear, never fear, even when she knew she was about to face something that could easily kill her—before she lost her sight, she was never afraid. She wanted to feel like that again. This—this would be another chance to prove herself.

She could do this. She had to.

Slowly, her hands trembling from excitement, she packed up her tent and bedroll once again and hefted her bags onto her back. She stumbled over to where they'd tethered the horses and untied one. Slowly, so as not to startle the animal, she laid her forehead against the horse's long face and let her mind reach out to mingle with its own. As a Bosmer, she had the natural ability to bond empathetically with animals, and it had only grown stronger as she worked to master the gift of the Voice. "_Raan._ Go in the direction I point you, but signal me if we come to an obstacle you can't traverse. Stay away from predators." Her spell gave her a direction, but she'd have to trust her mount to navigate the wilds in her stead. She hoped it understood her commands. Animals tended to have ideas of their own, and the domestic ones weren't always very clever. She vaulted onto the horse's bare back and squeezed its sides, and the two of them were off.

* * *

She followed the spell directly northwest. The first obstacle she came to was the sloshing water of Lake Ilnata a short distance behind her cottage. But she knew this area well, and she knew there was a road that would lead her around its shores if she followed it. She backtracked to the road and followed it for two days, adjusting her horse's heading when the clack of its hooves against cobblestone turned to the soft thump of grass. The going was slow, even though the only stops were to eat, sleep, and occasionally recast the spell. Thankfully, the going was smooth as could be hoped for: there was no inclement weather, and only one ambush by wolves, which she again turned away with _Raan_.

When the road reached its end and the sound of Lake Ilanata's waters had faded, her spell pointed her directly east. She followed it as truly as she could, hugging the rocky hillsides for another day. On the third night, the spell abruptly switched direction and pointed her directly south, and she knew she'd reached the right place.

She dismounted, ordering the horse to stay. If it were to be eaten by the werewolf, she'd have no way back. Then she followed the rest of the way along the path the spell led her. She kept a hand on the rocky outcropping, which bowed inward and then opened into a wide clearing. The usual sounds of Falkreath's pine forests had gone quiet; the air was ominously still. As she crept further, she caught the sound of heavy breathing.

"Hello? Who's there?" There was no response, but something on her left shifted. She followed the sound, shuffling so that she wouldn't trip on the uneven ground. It wasn't an animal, she determined, but a person. The scent of blood was heavy around them, and now that she was close, she could hear it bubbling in their throat and lungs.

It drew in a few more harsh breaths, and then spoke. "The prey… It is too strong." The voice sounded Khajiiti. "J'Kier came close to wounding it, but… failed."

"The target is still alive then?"

"Yes." They were interrupted by a string of wet coughs. "If this one is joining the hunt, J'Kier wishes them well. May they succeed where J'Kier could not. In the name… of Lord Hircine." They descended into coughs and wheezes, and their breaths grew shallow. Nilanwe ran her fingers along their abdomen and knew immediately there was nothing she could do. Their flesh had been torn apart, rended deeply by savage claws. It was a wonder they'd survived this long. She knelt beside the Khajiit as their breathing slowed, then finally stopped. When they had passed, she made a short prayer to Y'ffre, both for the deceased and for herself. Her chances here were slim, and she knew it. But if she turned back now, she was as good as dead. Maybe it would be a draugr in a tomb, maybe a hunter that Hircine that sent after her, but it would only be a matter of time. She couldn't go on like this.

She steeled her nerves and cast the spell again.

The spell led her through narrow and twisted paths in the gorge, up and down stairs that crumbled under her feet, around piles of rocks that were overgrown with flora. Something had been built here, once upon a time, but now it was reclaimed by the wilderness. She kept her right hand on the stone and dirt hillsides and walls lining the paths and counted each step she took—a turn right, forward fifteen paces, up a flight of stairs and then forward again. It was how she hoped to find her way out again if her spell failed her. Already, she could feel its strain on her depleted magicka, like a vise tightening where her neck and skull met. Forward nine, ten…

In her concentration, she failed to notice where she was placing her feet, and she tripped over something on the ground. She fell hard on her knees, breaking the spell and losing count. She felt around to find what she had fallen over and froze when her hand touched something soft, warm, and covered in tacky blood. A body. That made at least two that had been killed in this hunt.

It wasn't the last corpse she came across. As she made her way deeper, she forwent the counting and instead paid closer attention to her surroundings. Knowing how to chart a path out would do her no good if she was ambushed and killed. She began to tread over more and more bodies that littered the narrow pathways. There must have been at least a dozen. Some she could smell before she reached them, their entrails torn out and rotting on the ground and surrounded by the hum of flies. They had been here for quite some time. Had nobody been able to face this beast and live? It looked like all the hunters had been turned into prey themselves.

She'd just stepped into an open clearing when the sound of pebbles and grit skittering down a hillside made her turn sharply to her right. The spell she still held active in her hand chimed faintly. There it was, in front of her and maybe ten or twenty meters above. She let the spell drop and reflexively reached for her bow, only to find it absent. She cursed softly and laid her hand on her dagger instead, trying to keep herself from trembling in anticipation.

It spoke: "Am I going to have to kill another one of you? Why won't you let me live in peace?" The voice was deep, male, and unmistakably Nordic.

"I've been sent by Hircine to retrieve the artifact you stole," she said, fighting to keep her voice level. Her heart pounded. Again, she found herself wondering if she was really going through with this. "Just like all the others. If you return it, there's a chance we might be able to end this peacefully."

"I can't," he said, his voice rising slightly in pitch. "Hircine placed a curse on this ring when I took it, and now it's bound to me. I can't take it off." So much for that. "Please, I just—I only took the ring because I thought it would help me control my urges. Instead it just makes me change at the worst possible times. I was run out of Falkreath for killing a little girl. I didn't mean to, the change just came over me… I don't know what to do now."

He was rambling. Nilanwe pursed her lips. "I was sent to end this, and I'll do what I can to help you. I can't break a Daedra's curse, but what I can do is end your life peacefully so you won't have to kill anymore."

"No." The answer came immediately. "I know I deserve to die for what I did, but I—can't." His voice grew strained. "The wolf—it's too strong. It won't let me lay down and die. But I don't want to keep fighting. If you could talk to Hircine on my behalf, get him to remove the curse from this ring, I could give it back and leave here…"

"Where would you go? If you can't control your transformations, you're a danger to others."

"I know. I would go away, far away from humans and civilized life, never to return. I know now that I can't live among people." She could hear his rapid breathing from where she stood. Soon he would be in the throes of another transformation. He said he didn't want to fight, but his other half had other ideas.

That was the problem with werewolves. The human side of them might swear over and over that they would behave, do whatever it took to stop endangering innocent people, but promises meant nothing to the beast inside them. Few were strong enough that their human mind had the final say. Eventually, they all lost control. And as vast as Skyrim was, it was impossible to isolate oneself completely. He might suppress his cravings for human flesh and live for months or years in the wilds without incident, but it would only take the scent of one wandering trader or bandit to bring those urges back to the surface. Or maybe his human mind would falter first, and he'd seek out human companionship, convinced he finally had himself under control. Either way would end with villages ravaged and families torn apart by the jaws of the wolf. And it wouldn't be his fault, it would be hers, because she'd had the chance to stop it from happening but refused to do what was necessary.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't let you go."

"Then I will kill you like the rest!" The voice had dropped an octave lower. It wasn't human anymore. There was the sound of flesh stretching and tearing, bones snapping and organs rearranging. Nilanwe took a step back and found her heels against a wall. Frantically, she tried to remember—which way had she been facing when she entered the clearing? Which way was out? She couldn't focus, and it left her truly blind. A long, mournful howl split the air, and she knew she'd hesitated too long. She instinctively jumped to the side at the scrape of claws digging into stone. There was a roar and a rush of air, and a huge, heavy body landed where she'd been moments ago. It snarled; she could smell the putrid stench of blood and death in its breath even through her mask. It had been feasting.

She dodged a swipe that sailed over her head and struck out and up with her dagger. The beast would have to be at least half again as tall as her, and she wanted to get it in the neck or head. She hit _something_—the dagger plunged in to its hilt, and the wolf howled again in pain. Then it barreled forward, tackling her to the ground. Its enormous paws held her tightly on her back. She managed to thrust her neck out of the way of its snapping muzzle, but there was no way to dodge when it lifted an arm and raked its claws across her torso.

"_Feim!"_ she shouted as soon as she felt its claws dig into her, before she could even sense the pain. She didn't want to end up like J'Kier. The weight of the wolf left her, and her body turned light and airy. She sprang to her feet and ran blindly in a random direction, her ethereal form passing through the walls and hills in her way. Her _Thu'um_ ended while she was still partially inside a cliff, and she was shunted to the side and ejected face-first into an open area. She gasped in shock as the pain of her wounds hit her for the first time. The claws had gone deep, and warm blood leaked steadily over her gloves as she tried to staunch it. There was no time to heal it—the wolf wouldn't be able to smell the path she had taken, but it had seen the direction she'd gone in and could surely hear her. It would be upon her in moments, and she'd lost hold of her dagger when it knocked her to the ground. She had to run.

She forced herself to her feet, swaying unsteadily, and took a step forward—only to trip over yet another corpse. She groaned in pain and began to push herself up again, but her hand landed on something familiar. She knew it by feel: a bow. Not having held one in months, she couldn't stop her fingers from clasping it like an addict around a skooma pipe, and she ran her other hand along its limbs. It was a simple composite longbow, Nordic in construction, judging by the pitch of its curves. The string was still supple under her fingers, indicating to her that it had been well cared for; its wielder must have been dead for a very short time. It was nothing like the gilded moonstone bow she'd left back up on High Hrothgar, but it comforted her, even as the wolf's howls drew closer. If she was going to die, at least it would be with a bow in hand.

The sound of the wolf scrabbling up the hill behind her snapped her into action. As if in a trance, she felt for the quiver on the hunter's back, and drew out three arrows by the nocks. Automatically, she laced them between her fingers and turned to the direction she'd fled from. Her breathing was slow and steady as she gripped the bow, pointed it at the darkness, and drew. It was coming. Three, two, one…

"_Laas!"_ she shouted as the wolf crested the hilltop and leapt. She could almost see it now under the foggy red shape of its aura. She aimed at that and released the arrows in sequence, first the one, then the second, then the last. Each one gave the satisfying _squelch_ of finding its mark in flesh, and the third cut the wolf's snarling short. It was dead when it landed at her feet.

When she realized it was truly dead, she let the bow fall from her fingers and stood there in stunned silence. What had she just done? Her body had moved on its own… In a daze, she drew a small knife from her pack and began skinning her kill, the same way she had a hundred times before.

A voice echoed in her mind, the same one as from the dream. _"Well done, hunter. You have found my favor."_

"Hircine." Her head was still in a fog. "Tell me, how is it that I was able to kill a werewolf with a bow and arrow when I couldn't even see it?"

"_The true hunter finds a way to survive in the most impossible of circumstances."_

"Is that why you called me to join in this hunt? Just to see if I could do it?" No response. He'd probably expected this to end with her blood spilled on the ground. All the Daedra were cruel in their own way. She finished skinning the pelt and folded it in her arms. The edges were a bit rough, since she'd had to do it all by feel, but it was all in one piece. "I've done as you asked."

"_You have indeed. Keep that skin close to you, child. My glories will protect you from all the world's grievances."_ She was about to ask what he meant, but suddenly found that the pelt was transformed under her hands, sewn into the shape of a cuirass and adorned with plates and chain mail. The Savior's Hide.

"Thank you," she said, her words halting and awkward in the air that had begun stirring in the grotto once again. She didn't know what she was thanking him for. Was it for sending her on this fool's errand? For demanding that she go alone and almost unarmed against a werewolf, and threatening to take her life should she refuse? What had he truly done for her?

She knew the answer, though she was too proud to admit it. At the end, in some roundabout way, he'd made her believe she was competent again. And that was what she'd really needed.

She shed her tattered leather cuirass and donned her new armor, struggling a bit to find all the buckles, but eventually managing to wrangle it into a decent fit. The fur lining was warm against her skin, though it cut off below the shoulder and left her lower arms exposed. She crossed them self-consciously, trying to cover the burn scars from Alduin's flames. But that was stupid, she realized. There was nobody else here to see. She was the only one standing alive in a field of the dead.

She shouldered her pack and found her way back to the stone hills lining the path. She placed her right hand on them again and began to walk.

* * *

_A/N: Need to admit that this character was sparked at least in part by vecordias and one of their Dragonborns. You know the one._


End file.
